Variants of the Rice Origin Tale

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
Alexander Salley, who became state archivist for South Carolina, [1] reprinted eight versions of Fayrer Hall’s origin tale that was quoted in the post for 18 September 2022.  Each has been retold by others.  Still others have tried to combine them into a single tale, emphasizing different elements.  The history of the history has moved from some attempts to explain a confusing situation, the varieties of rice found in South Carolina, to syntheses that compounded the confusion.

The first person Salley mentioned was James Glen, governor between 1743 and 1756, [2] who reprinted Hall’s version in 1761.  He emphasized chance and the irrelevance of the proprietors when he added (motif 3 in the list with End Notes) “it was not done with any previous Prospect of Gain, but owing to a lucky accident, and a private experiment.”  The (4) gift motif was expanded when he added it was done “for the benefit of Mankind.” [3]

In 1766, when conflicts between the crown and the colony were escalating after the Sugar Act of 1764, Gentleman’s Magazine of London published an account by Peter Collinson, a friend of Charles Dubois, which contained many of the same motifs as Hall. [4]

The (1) individual responsible for introducing the rice was the treasurer of the East India company, and the recipient was (5) Thomas Marsh, a Carolina merchant, after they (3) happened to meet in a coffee house.  Dubois (4) gave Marsh (6) a “money bag” of (2) East India rice.

Since the quantity was so small, (9) more rice was brought by a Portuguese slave trader who (4) gave, but actually bartered, some of the ship’s provisions for fresh produce.  The (3) unexpected rice (8) made men more sure rice could be a viable commodity.

However, (9) the planters still didn’t have enough, and, in 1713, the colony paid bounties to captains who brought rice.  One shipment came (2) “from the Streights, probably Egypt” or Milan.  Another bounty was paid for rice that came with a slave ship from (2) Madagascar. [5]

Salley found no record of the bounties, and believed the London writer was thinking of the gratuity paid to John Thurber. [6]  What Salley didn’t mention was that the Portuguese and Madagascar ships were probably smugglers who provided cheap goods to Charles Town the way the pirates had.  He did mention rice itself was smuggled to Portugal in 1708, and sold for fish that then was sent to London. [7]

Collinson and Du Bois both were London cloth merchants and avid gardeners.  Collinson imported plants collected by John Bertram and sponsored Mark Catesby plant hunting trip to Carolina in 1722.  [8]  Du Bois also was treasurer of the East India Company.  He used that position to encourage plant explorations and import plants from India. [9]

In 1772, as rebellion against royal authority was brewing in France, a contributor to Guillaume Thomas Raynal’s history of European trade with the two Indies emphasized that the introduction was (3) “purely fortuitous,” the result of a ship returning from the (2) East Indies that (3) “happened to be cast away” and (6) “some bags” were (4) “taken from the ship.”  Even so, “a trial was made of sowing them, which (8) succeeded  beyond expectations.” [10]

During the American Revolution, in 1779, a Tory minister living in exile in London, Alexander Hewat, [11] replaced the adventurer, Henry Woodward, with an idealized royal governor, Thomas Smith. [12]

According to Hewat, soon after Smith became governor, (3) a “fortunate accident happened” when (1) a brigantine from (2) Madagascar (3) touched on Sullivan Island outside the Charles Town harbor.  Smith met with the captain who (4) “made him a present of a (6) bag of seed rice.”  Smith (7) divided the rice between “Stephen Bull, Joseph Woodward, and some other friends.” [13]

Hewatt then mentioned (9) DuBois to explain (11) “the distinction of red and white rice.” [14]

The location of the accident and the identity of the planters have been elaborated.  Sullivan’s Island was the location of the fort William Moultrie built that repulsed the first British attack on Charleston in 1776, [15] while Hewat was close to the last royal governor of the colony, William Bull. [16]  Stephen Bull was William’s son, and his son, William’s grandson, also Stephen Bull, married Elizabeth Woodward. [17]  Salley couldn’t identify Joseph, who was not descended from Henry. [18]

In 1798, after years of battle and intrigue to secure the French revolution, Raynal reissued his history and the current contributor said “opinions differ” on the introduction of rice, and he no longer thought it mattered if it came with a shipwreck, was sent by England, or brought by slaves, because what mattered was South Carolina was ideally suited to grow rice. [19]

In 1802, another governor, John Drayton, published his version, which now gave “good government” a role.  He said the first shipment of 1688 was an unprofitable variety, and it was only in 1696 that a larger, whiter variety was introduced. [20]  The last is a trait associated with the rice of Hezekiah Maham, [21] and Drayton may have been contrasting the rice that existed after the revolution, with that from before.

Drayton’s second introduction came when the (1) captain of a brigantine from (2) Madagascar (4) “presented” a (6) bag to the (5) governor (7) “who divided it between several gentlemen.”  He adds, Mr. DuBois (9) “sent another parcel” which explains “the distinction which now prevails, between white and gold rice.” [22]

In 1809, David Ramsay deliberately introduced new elements.  He suggested Thomas Smith “had been at Madagascar before he settled in Carolina” and that he was “an old acquaintance” of the captain of a (1) vessel from (2) Madagascar which (3) “being in distress, came to anchor near Sullivan’s Island.”   The (1) ship’s cook (4) “presented” Smith with (6) “a small bag of rice.” [23]

This time it’s Smith himself who (8) proved that rice could grow “luxuriantly.”  He (7) distributed his “little crop” “among his planter friends”   Salley said Ramsay went so far as to alter Edward Crisp’s 1704 map of Charles Town to mark the spot in Smith’s garden where the rice first grew, apparently unaware that the area could not have supported rice because it only had access to salt water. [24]

Ramsay had been an active patriot during the war, jailed in Saint Augustine by the British. [25]  His more colorful version may have been influenced by Parson Weems’ attempts to create a dramatic past for the young republic with his books on George Washington [26] and Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. [27]  The later was published in 1809, based on notes by Peter Horry, but had been repudiated by Horry. [28]

Many recent writers have read some, or all of the accounts mentioned by Salley, and created their own syntheses, usually within a contemporary framework.  For instance, Richard Shulze, who is growing heirloom Carolina Gold rice at his Turnbridge Plantation, has elaborated the accident:

“A Liverpool-bound brigantine sailing from (2) Madagascar was (3) badly damaged by a storm and blown off course; it set into the port of Charles Towne for repairs.” [29]

and the nature of the gift

“Dr. Henry Woodward apparently (4) befriended the captain” [30]

From there, the modern skeptic questions the traditional facts, noting “the ship, which was of American origin, was probably not trading legally as the British law at that time forbade trade outside of the colonies and the British Isles.” [31]

He repeats Ramsay’s idea filtered through Salley that “Woodward proceeded to grow this in his garden in the city” [32] before suggesting it was more likely he planted the seed at “the more suitable property on the Abbapoola Creek.” [33]

He then notes not enough time passed between the summer of 1685 when the ship entered port and Woodward’s trip to the frontier where he died for him to (8) “produce a very good crop, which he then (9) distributed to his friends.”  He concludes “he probably never had the opportunity to fully appreciate (10) the new industry that he was so instrumental in spawning.” [34]

Who provided the rice may not be as important as who actually planted the first successful crop.  This is not part of the legend.  All that can be deduced is a date.  Richard Porcher says the first recorded export was to Jamaica in 1695. [35]  Woodward had been dead at least five years by then.  Thurber was active between 1694 and 1697. [36]

End Notes
Motifs found in origin tales that explain the introduction of rice to South Carolina.  These are introduced in the post for 18 September 2022.

1. Someone, usually unnamed
2. From Madagascar
3. Through some accident, usually a shipwreck
4. Gave, usually as a sign of gratitude
5. To Woodward, or some other prominent person
6. A peck or some other small amount of rice
7. Which was distributed free to the other planters
8. Who proved rice could grow in the colony
9. A second introduction
10. Is responsible for the spread of the crop
11. And the visible variations in the rice

1.  Roberta VH Copp.  “Salley, Alexander Samuel.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website, 1 August 2016; last updated 25 October 2016.

2.  “List of Colonial Governors of South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.

3.  James Glen.  A Description of South Carolina.  London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1761.  Quoted by A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina.”  Bulletin of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina: State Company, 1919.  Bulletin 6.  14.

4.  Peter Collinson.  “An Account of the Introduction of Rice and Tar into our Colonies.”  Gentleman’s Magazine 36:278–279:June 1766.  Quoted by Salley. 14.  Reprinted by Carolina Gold Rice Foundation’s The Rice Paper, January 2007.

5.  Collinson.  Quoted by Salley.  15.
6.  Thurber was mentioned in the post for 18 September 2022.

7.  John Lloyd, St. Nicholas-Lane.  Letter to William Popple, Secretary of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 30 December 1708.  Quoted by Salley.  7–8.  The original is in the British Public Record Office, Proprieties, Board of Trade, Volume 9, p. 49.

If pirates were responsible for introducing rice, as the legends claim, they may have remained important customers.  Salley tries to date the introduction of rice by the fact it was not mentioned as an export in 1694. [37]  However, the Navigation Act may have driven customers like ship’s captains and piraes, to buy supplies in places that evaded London.

8.  “Peter Collinson (Botanist).”  Wikipedia website.

9.  Margaret Riley.  “‘Procurers of plants and encouragers of gardening’: William and James Sherard, and Charles du Bois, Case Studies in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Botanical and Horticultural Patronage.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Buckingham, 2011.

10.  Abbé Raynal.  Philosophical and Political History of the Possessions and Trade of Europeans in the Two Indies.  Amsterdam: 1772.  Quoted by Salley.  23.  This is the English language edition; the French title is Histoire des deux Indes.

11.  Hewat is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
12.  Smith is discussed in the post for 11 September 2022.

13.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section The Planting of Rice Introduced.  Quoted by Salley.  20.

14.  Rice has a white husk.  Sometimes, when it goes to seed, it appears with a red one.  The red often is called “weedy” rice since it was not deliberately planted.  Until Gregor Mendel discussed probabilities of gene occurrence, the two colors were a mystery to be explained.  The genetics are discussed in the post for 6 November 2022.

15.  “Fort Moultrie.”  Wikipedia website.

16.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  443.  “Hewatt was intimate with the family of Lieutenant William Bull.”

17.  Joseph W. Barnwell.  “Dr. Henry Woodward, the First English Settler in South Carolina, and Some of His Descendants.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 8(1):29–41:January 1907.  30.  “Stephen Bull, the grandson of the first Lieutenant Governor Bull, had married Elizabeth Woodward, the only daughter of Richard Woodward (grandson of Dr. Woodward).”

18.  Hewatt.  Quoted by Salley.  20.

19.  Abbé Raynal.  Philosophical and Political History of the Possessions and Trade of Europeans in the Two Indies.  London: A. Strahan, 1798.  6:59.  Quoted by Salley.  23.

20.  John Drayton.  A View of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: W. P. Young, 1802.  Quoted by Salley.  21.

21.  Maham is discussed in the posts for 13 November 2022 and 20 November 2022.
22.  Drayton.  Quoted by Salley.  21.

23.  David Ramsay.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Quoted by Salley.  21.

24.  Salley.  22.  The copy of Ramsay’s history available online does not contain a map. [38]

25.  W. Curtis Worthington.  “Ramsay, David.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website, 20 June 2016; last updated 28 November 2016.

26.  M. L. Weems.  A History of the Life and Death, Virtues, and Exploits, of General George Washington.  Georgetown, DC: Green and English, 1800.

27.  M. L. Weems.  The Life of Gen. Francis Marion.  Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1809.

28.  “Weems, Mason Locke.”  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography Vol. 6. Sunderland-Zurita, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske.  New-York: Appleton and Company, 1900.

29.  Richard Schulze.  Carolina Gold Rice: The Ebb and Flow History of a Lowcountry Cash Crop.  Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2005.  23.

30.  Schulze.  23.
31.  Schulze.  23.
32.  Schulze.  23.
33.  Schulze.  26.

34.  Schultze.  26.  He claims Woodward “came down with the fever at an Indian village and was evacuated to his plantation where he died at age forty.

35.  Richard Dwight Porcher, Jr., and William Robert Judd.  The Market Preparation of Carolina Rice.  Columbia, South Carolina: The University of South Carolina Press, 2014.  17.

36.  Guy Mannering Fessenden.  “Burials at Warren and Barrington, R. I.”  The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 48:442–444:October 1894.  Quoted by Salley.  13.  Fessenden discovered Thurber was buried in Warren, Rhode Island, and noted he had brought the rice from India between 1694 and 1697.

37.  Salley’s source was John Houghton, who published A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade.  He cites volume 2.  The periodical’s publisher was London’s Randal Taylor.

38.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  Discussion of Smith and rice is on pages 2:113–114.

Rice’s Origin Tale

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
Thomas Smith, mentioned in the post for 11 September 2022, governed at the time when South Carolina did not have a commercial crop.  Without a steady flow of income, settlers traded with pirates for hard currency [1] and, according to Peter Wood, occasional lots of slaves. [2]  Their tolerance changed when pirates disrupted the movement of their commodities.  Eugene Sirmans claims Smith was the “first governor to enjoy a lasting success in suppressing the pirate trade.” [3]

Rice, the first successful staple crop, was introduced at least three times: first in the early years of the colony, again after the revolution when planters needed to replace their lost seed grain, and then again when Joshua John Ward made his improved selection available in 1844. [4]

The first occurred before there were many written records and has become the subject of folk history; the second is remembered in family tradition, and the third, a commercial transaction, was recorded for all to know by the participants.

Alexander Salley found the only public record of what became the folk tradition was a 1715 entry in the journal of the House of Commons noting the body had agreed to pay a gratuity of one hundred pounds to John Thurber for “bringing the first Madagascar Rice into this province.” [5]

He found the first narrative explanation appeared sixteen years later in a pamphlet he attributed to Fayrer Hall, who had served in expeditions against pirates in 1718. [6]  Hall wrote the introduction of rice

“was owing to the following Accident.  A Brigantine from the Island Madagascar happened to put in there; they had a little Seed Rice left, not exceeding a Peck or Quarter of a bushel, which the Captain offered and gave to a Gentlemen of the Name of Woodward.  From Part of this he had a very good Crop, but was ignorant for some Years how to clean it.  It was soon dispensed over the Province; and by frequent Experiments and Observations they found out Ways of producing and manufacturing it to so great Perfection, that it is thought it exceeds any other in Value.  The Writer of this hath seen the Captain in Carolina, where he received a handsome gratuity from the Gentlemen of that Country.” [7]

The basic motifs of the folk narrative, told in several variants, are that:

1.  Someone, usually unnamed
2.  From Madagascar
3.  Through some accident, usually a shipwreck
4.  Gave, usually as a sign of gratitude
5.  To Woodward, or some other prominent person
6.  A peck or some other small amount of rice
7.  Which was distributed free to the other planters
8.  Who proved rice could grow in the colony

Item 1.  In the first retelling, the identity of Thurber was reduced to a sea captain, who was now the one from Madagascar.

Item 2.  Between the time Charles II granted Carolina to eight proprietors in 1663 and Thurber’s petition, Madagascar was not controlled by any western power.  When the Portuguese arrived, Swahili-speaking traders were shipping rice and slaves to the African and Arabian coasts. [8]  The Europeans made a few cursory attempts that primarily resulted in disrupting existing trade networks without replacing them. [9]  French attempts begun in 1643 [10] and English experiments in 1649 [11] ended in massacres.

The only westerners who visited the island after that were pirates.  Charles had used privateers as part of naval offence against Spain and Dutch. [12]  Later, peace treaties forced him to forbid Carolina from consorting with them. [13]  In 1683, Thomas Lynch, the governor of Jamaica, began discouraging pirates [14] who, he claimed, moved to the northern Carolina coast. [15] Alexander Hewat says Robert Quarry, governor for a few months in 1685, welcomed them to Charles Town in 1685. [16]

Charles’ brother, James II, became more assertive, [17] and dispatched a small fleet to Jamaica to arrest pirates in 1687. [18]  James Colleton then was governor of Charles Town, and he assured the proprietors that no “pirates nor other Sea Robbers” had been allowed in port. [19]  This, apparently, was when the pirates, now aware of Jamaica’s need for slaves, moved to Madagascar. [20]

With another turn of fortune, James was ousted by William of Orange in 1688, and Colleton by Seth Sothell in 1690. [21]  Sothell again welcomed pirates in Charles Town. [22]

Item 3.  Hall used the word “accident” to suggest the introduction was a chance, not deliberate act.  From the first the proprietors wanted to develop a colony and listed rice as one of the crops that was both suitable to the climate and congruent with the throne’s desire to establish a completely self-sufficient mercantile economy. [23]  In 1672, William Jeffereys sent a barrel of rice “for the prop. acct of the Lords Proprs of Carolina” which was received by the governor. [24]

Many of the early settlers never accepted the legitimacy of the proprietors and had thrown off their power in 1720.  The use of the word “accident,” like the hidden reference to pirates, may have been an attempt to suggest the proprietors had nothing to do with the introduction of rice as a crop and, by extension, the success of the colony.

Item 4.  The gift of rice may have alluded to some bribe paid by pirates to an authority in Charles Town.  It also may have been another attempt to contrast proper behavior with that of the proprietors.  The third governor of the colony, John Yeamans, shipped his surplus food to Barbados where he could make a profit rather than sell it to the settlers he’d brought with him who didn’t have enough to eat. [25]

Item 5.  Woodward is assumed to have been Henry Woodward.  He had come to the area on the exploratory voyage of 1666 [26] and stayed with the Natives on Port Royale sound. [27]  He was captured by the Spanish the next year. [28]  When Robert Searle raided Saint Augustine in 1668 Woodward escaped and stayed with the pirates until shipwrecked on Nevis in 1669. [29]

He returned to the area with the expedition that founded Charles Town in 1670, and explored the interior. [30]  As mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022, the proprietors were not happy with the progress of the colony and one, Anthony Ashley Cooper, planned a new venture on Edisto Island in 1674. [31]  He hired Woodward to establish trade relations with the Westo. [32]

Cooper may have snared Woodward into his political campaign against Roman Catholics, mentioned in the post for 11 September 2022.  In 1677, just before Cooper was jailed the first time, Woodward signed an agreement with Cooper and three of the proprietors’ heirs [33] to work as their agent for a 20% commission of the profits. [34]  Cooper later promoted a Scots settlement near Edisto. [35]  After Cooper’s death in 1683, Woodward supported the Yamasee and Stuart Town against the proprietors.  Woodward died sometime between 1685 and 1690. [36]

His ambiguous loyalties to pirates, proprietors, rebellious settlers and native Americans made him a figure suspect to all.  He’s the element in Hall’s narrative that became the least stable.

Item 6.  The quantity of rice usually struck the narrator as too small to explain the spread or variations in the crop, and so a second introduction was often mentioned, much like the story of Seth resolves problems of ancestry introduced by the fight between Cain and Abel.  Hall suggested that

“Mr. Du Bois, Treasurer of the East-India Company, did send to that Country a small Bag of Seed-Rice some short Time after, from whence it is reasonable enough to suppose might come these two Sorts of that Commodity, one called Red Rice in Contradistinction to the White.” [37]

This addendum introduces the remaining motifs in the origin tale:

9. A second introduction
10. Is responsible for the spread of the crop
11. And the visible variations in the rice

End Notes
1.  Pirates were mentioned by Alexander Hewat in the first history of the colony, [38] and the information was elaborated by William James Rivers. [39]  Edward McCrady went to some lengths to dispute the importance of piracy, while also trying to document its extent. [40]  Most recently, Eugene Sirmans addressed it in the context of factional politics. [41]

2.  Peter H. Wood.  Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carlina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion.  New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1974.  44.

3.  M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  54.

4.  Ward is discussed in the post for 6 August 2023.

5.  Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina.  Journal, 16 February 1715.  Quoted by A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina.”  Bulletin of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina: State Company, 1919.  Bulletin 6.  9.

6.  Salley.  10.

7.  Fayrer Hall.  The Importance of the British Plantations in America to this Kingdom.  London: J. Peele, 1731.  Quoted by Salley.  10.

8.  R. K. Kent.  “Madagascar and the Islands of the Indian Ocean.”  849–894 in Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century.  Edited by B. A. Ogot.  Paris: UNESCO, 1992.  859.

9.  The Cambridge History of Africa. IV: From c. 1600 to c. 1790.  Edited by Richard Gray.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.  231.  Kent said the Portuguese lost interest after 1620. [42]

10.  Kent.  864.  The French fort lasted until 1674.

11.  Alison Games.  “Oceans, Migrants, and the Character of Empires: English Colonial Schemes in the Seventeenth Century.”  Library of Congress conference on Seascapes, Littoral Cultures, and Trans-Oceanic Exchanges, 12 February–15 February 2003.  Visitors to the colony found slain bodies in 1650.

12.  After Charles I was executed, his son Charles commissioned privateers to attack English ships. [43] After he was crowned Charles II, he expected privateers to pay for his war with the Dutch by seizing their ships. [44]

13.  Wm. Jas. Rivers.  A Sketch of the History of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter and Company, 1856.  138.  147.  He mentions the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, which recognized England’s claim to Jamaica in exchange for suppressing “piracy in the Caribbean.” [45]

14.  Mark G. Hanna.  “Contesting Jamaica’s Future, 1655–1688.”  In Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.  Online version does not have page numbers.

15.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  204.

16.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 2, section “The toleration of pirates in Carolina.”  Quarry served from 1 July 1685 to Oct 1685. [46]

17.  Rivers.  147.
18.  Hanna.

19.  M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  45.  Colleton is mentioned in the post for 11 September 2022.

20.  Angus Konstam and Roger Michael Kean.  Pirates: Predators of the Seas.  New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2016.  219.

21.  Sothell was not named, but was alluded to in the post for 11 September 2022.
22.  Sirmans.  50.
23.  Salley.  5.
24.  Salley.  5.
25.  Yeamans’ tenure as governor is discussed in the post for 21 August 2022.

26.  McCrady.  83.  This account is based on the papers of Anthony Ashley Cooper, [47] which became public in 1897. [48]  Thus, Woodward is not mentioned by Hewat or David Ramsay, [49] and only briefly by Rivers.

27.  McCrady.  90.
28.  McCrady.  123.

29.  Joseph W. Barnwell.  “Dr. Henry Woodward, the First English Settler in South Carolina, and Some of His Descendants.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 8(1):29–41:January 1907.  31.

30.  Barnwell.  32.

31.  L. H. Roper.  Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662–1729.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  48 and 174 note 144.

32.  McCrady.  177.  The arrangement was rejected by later settlers who precipitated a war that exterminated the tribe and replaced them with the Savannah. [50]

33.  George Monck died in 1669, and his son inherited his share of the proprietorship.  Edward Hyde died in 1674, and Sothel had purchased his part.  John Colleton still was represented by his son, Peter Colleton. [51]

34.  Rivers.  122.
35.  Roper.  73–81.
36.  Barnwell.  32.
37.  Hall.  Quoted by Salley.  11.
38.  Hewatt, Toleration of Pirates.  Hewat is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
39.  Rivers.  138.  He is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
40.  McCrady.  201.
41.  Sirmans.  40.
42.  Kent.  863.
43.  This is discussed in the post for 17 April 2022.

44.  Gijs Rommelse.  “Prizes and Profits: Dutch Maritime Trade during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.”  International Journal of Maritime History 19(2):139–159:2007.  Cited by “Anglo-Dutch Wars.”  Wikipedia website.  The war is mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022.

45.  “Treaty of Madrid (1670).”  Wikipedia website.
46.  “List of Colonial Governors of South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.
47.  Barnwell.  30.

48.  Landon Cheves.  “The Shaftesbury Papers and Other Records Relating to Carolina and the First Settlement on Ashley River prior to the Year 1676.”  South Carolina Historical Society.  Collections 5:1897.

49.  David Ramsey.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  He is discussed in the posts for 10 July 2022.

50.  Alan Gallay.  The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.  55.

51.  McCrady.  268.

Thomas Smith

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
The Charles Town colony survived the upheavals of John Yeamans.  It began to resemble the experiment envisioned by Anthony Ashley Cooper, with more new settlers coming from England than Barbados. [1]

South Carolina did not have a commercial crop that returned profits to the grant’s proprietors, but settlers had developed some trade with Barbados in dried meat, animal skins purchased from friendly Native Americans, and slaves taken from hostile groups.  Many still preferred evading the Navigation Laws by patronizing pirates, and a vocal group continued to resent any interference in their lives by the proprietors who owned the land.

Joan Atkins may have been typical of the second generation of immigrants.  The widow arrived in the summer of 1684 with her four children and several servants.  She had sufficient resources to purchase 1,600 acres from Benjamin Waring ten days after she registered with the colony. [2]  He had arrived the year before with a large retinue, and claimed 700 acres. [3]

Her daughter Barbara and her husband and two sons may have lived there until early 1685 when Thomas Smith claimed 650 acres for the entire group. [4]  By then, he had had an opportunity to reconnoiter the area, for he selected land up river from Goose Creek at the junction of Back River with the Cooper.  Later that year, he protested a proposal to cut a canal through his land because he would lose marsh land he used to graze cattle. [5]

Raising livestock was the occupation for poor settlers who shipped four tons of dried meat to Barbados in 1680.  They began with their head-right claims and an animal purchased from another settler.  As the animals increased, they invested their profits in more land or, later, labor. [6]

Since colonist foraged their hogs and cattle on unclaimed woodlands along waterways, [7] they selected “high ground overlooking navigable streams” for their homes. [8]  Smith’s river location provided a natural pasture that needed no fences.

By 1687 he had accumulated enough capital to become active in politics.  James Colleton, the brother of the proprietor Peter Colleton, [9] was battling entrenched colonists who defied the proprietor’s rules.  As governor, he appointed a committee to recommend changes in the constitution, and included men he saw as allies.  Smith was one of the group. [10]

The proprietors’ interest in the colony fluctuated.  Many had died and been replaced by heirs or their agents; some had sold their shares. [11]  Cooper got embroiled in plots to prevent Charles the Second’s Roman Catholic brother James from succeeding to the throne.  He was in and out of jail between 1678 and his death in 1683. [12]

In 1681, Cooper began actively promoting Carolina as a refuge for Protestant dissidents in London, Dublin, the United Provinces, and the Palatinate.  It was in this period that Huguenots began moving to the north of Charleston [13].

Johan van Aerssen was granted 12,000 acres [14] to bring a group from Wernhout in Brabant.  Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena have shown Johan and his cousin, Cornelis van Aerssen, were planning a colony in Surinam to be supported by the one on the mainland. [15]  Unfortunately, Johan died in 1688, [16] before he could begin his part.

Soon after, the then widowed Smith married van Aerssen’s widow. [17]  He had her husband’s land grant transferred to him in 1689. [18]  This acquisition placed him among Charles Town’s elite.

James Colleton’s governorship straddled the years from Charles II to the ouster of James II by William of Orange.  When colonists rebelled against Colleton, the Proprietors made Smith a landgrave [19] in anticipation of naming him governor in 1690.  [20]   Instead, a man who had purchased a share in the grant took power until 1692. [21]  When the next governor left in November 1694, Smith rose to the office. [22]  It was more than anyone could handle. [23]  He resigned in November 1694, and died soon after. [24]

Smith may have been the first governor with the background similar to that of many of the settlers, but he only interests historians as a pawn in the conflict between the proprietors and the group who called themselves the Goose Creek Men.  They make no comment on his background, except to assume he was a dissenter. [25]

Few facts exist about Smith’s early life.  Agnes Leland Baldwin says he and the Atkins provided no information when they registered with the colony. [26]  His descendants, naturally, wanted to know more, and when details do not exist, legends fill crevices.

In 1855, Smith’s great-great-great-granddaughter published a family history that said Smith was born in Exeter, and emigrated with his brother James, who moved to Boston. [27]  Before he left England, Smith married a young baroness, the widow of “Bernard Schencking, whose brother Benjamin accompanied them.” [28]  They settled on the Back River where they “engaged in the art of arts, agriculture, without which man would be a savage.” [29]

Four generations of oral tradition had kept a few details — Smith knew someone named Benjamin and married an heiress — but interwove them with suppositions and received history.  Poyas took her recitation of Smith’s career from Ramsey. [30]

Her or Ramsay’s mention of Exeter prompted others to look for a suitable Smith ancestor.  They lit upon the heirs of George Smith.  This is the same Smith, mentioned in the post for 3 July 2022, who refused to honor the marriage contract of his daughter with George Monck.  George’s son Nicholas had five sons, one of whom was named John.  Compton Reade reprints the pedigree Nicholas registered in 1620, [31] and marks John has the “ancestor of the Landgrave of Carolina.” [32]

The only mention of a location in England was made by Joan’s son Aaron’s wife Mary.  She named a number of relatives in Chard and on the Isle of Wight. [33]  Chard was  a textile community over the border from Devon on the watershed between the Bristol and English Channels. [34]  It was near the area that bred Henry Walrond. [35]

Most of the genealogies for Smith that have been posted on the internet follow Reade.  Constance Fenimore Woolson tried to make the brother James into the ancestor of Abigail Adams in 1875. [36]  Another spent a great deal of space trying to avoid the term “incest” because Smith mentioned Joan as his mother.  While Alexander Salley warned about the problems with kinship terms in the seventeenth century, [37] they apparently did not think about “mother” being an endearment for “mother-in-law.” [38]

Genealogies depend of written documentation.  So far, no baptismal or marriage records have been found.  That may be because people only have looked in Exeter, and may not exist if his parents were dissenters.  However, until something is found, he remains one of the many men without history who arrived in Carolina, some as indentured servants, and some with the resources to hire them.  Woolson, the great-niece of another author of American legends, [39] calls Smith “one of Locke’s Carolina nobility.” [40]

End Notes
References to multiple historians are given in chronological order.  This follows the pattern established in the posts for 19 June 2022 and 10 July 2022.

1.  Yeamans and Cooper are discussed in the post for 21 August 2022.

2.  A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Family of the First Landgrave Thomas Smith.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 28(3):169–175:July 1927.  169.

3.  Joseph Ioor Waring.  “Waring Family.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 24(2):81–100:July–October 1923.  81.

4.  Salley.  169.

5.  Michael J. Heitzler.  Goose Creek.  Volume One: Planters, Politicians and Patriots.  Charleston: The History Press, 2005.  83.  He says Smith lived on Goose Creek

6.  John Solomon Otto.  “Livestock-Raising in Early South Carolina, 1670-1700: Prelude to the Rice Plantation Economy.”  Agricultural History 61:(4):13–24:Autumn, 1987.  20.  Otto noted “given the small investment, livestock-raising provided a means of economic advancement for even the poorest settlers.” [46]

7.  Otto.  16.
8.  Otto.  18.

9.  James Colleton is the one mentioned in the post for 10 July 2022 who was born after his father, John Colleton, left Exeter.  Peter Colleton is discussed in the posts for 26 Jule 2022 and 21 August 2022.  J. E. Buchanan thinks it was another, Edward, was the one involved in the duel with the son of John Yeamans mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022. [47]

10.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section A.D. 1687.

Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  225.

11.  McCrady.  268–272.

12.  L. H. Roper.  Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662–1729.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  Chapter 5, Plots.

13.  Roper.  69–70.
14.  McCrady.  170

15.  D. Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena.  “Building Dutch Suriname in English Carolina: Aristocratic Networks, Native Enslavement, and Plantation Provisioning in the Seventeenth-Century Americas.”  Journal of Southern History 86:(1):37–74:February 2020.  Aerssen’s name and title often are misspelled.

16.  Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum entry for Johan van Aerssen II on Netherlands Archiven website.

17.  Wm. Jas. Rivers.  A Sketch of the History of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter and Company, 1856.  170.  He calls him John D’Arens.

18.  McCrady.  266.  He calls him John d’Arsens, Seigneur de Wernhaut.

19.  The charter for Carolina granted by Charles II allowed the proprietors to establish a nobility so long as they used different titles.  Thus, the head proprietor was the palitinate.  Below him were landgraves and caciques.  Each title brought a right to land.  As in England, where the governor of a an overseas colony was expected to have a title, so too a governor was expected to be a landgrave.  As mentioned in the post for 21 August 2022, Yeamans gained his title when he was named governor of the Clarendon colony on Cape Fear.

20.  Hewatt.  Chapter 3, section Thomas Smith appointed governor.

David Ramsey.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  1:25.

McCrady.  231.

21.  Ramsay.  1:22.
Rivers.  155.
McCrady.  231.

M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  48.

22.  McCrady.  266.

David Duncan Wallace.  The History of South Carolina.  New York: American Historical Society, 1934.  1:124.

Sirmans.  53.

23.  Charles M. Andrews.  The Colonial Period of American History: The Settlements III.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937.  233.  “It was more than anyone could handle.”

24.  Hewatt.  Chapter 3, section John Archdale appointed governor.
McCrady.  267.

25.  Ramsay. 2: 113.  His source was probably a descendant of Smith, since he supports this section with a note that “a tradition has been regularly handed down among the descendants of Thomas Smith.”

Sirmans.  40 and 53.

26.  Agnes Leland Baldwin.  First Settlers of South Carolina, 1670–1700.  Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1985.  Atkins, 7; Smith, 217, 219.

27.  Elizabeth Anne Poyas as the Octogenarian Lady, of Charleston, S. C.  The Olden Time of Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: Courtenay and Company, 1855.  3.

28.  Poyas.  18.
29.  Poyas.  19.

30.  She specifically quotes Ramsay on Smith’s role in jury trials that Ramsay had attributed to Smith family tradition.  Since she was born in 1792, she was too young to be Ramsay’s source.  

31.  Nich. Smyth.  “Smyth.”  264–265 in The Visitation of the County of Devon in the Year 1620, edited by Frederic Thomas Colby.  London: Taylor and Company, 1872.  George’s father married into a family that traced itself back to Edward I.

32.  Compton Reade.  The Smith Family.  London: Eliot Stock, 1904.  56.

33.  Mary Atkins.  Will, 1684.  Quoted by Salley.  172–174.

34.  Clare Gathercole.  An Archaeological Assessment of Chard.  Taunton, UK: Somerset County Council.  Available on Somerset Heritage website.

35.  Henry Walrond is mentioned in the post for 17 April 2022.

36.  Constance Fenimore Woolson.  “Up the Ashley and Cooper.”  Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 52(307):1–24:December 1875.  She was a northerner who toured the south when she spent her winters in Saint Augustine, Florida. [48]  She borrowed from Poyas.

37.  Salley.  174.  “It would all be very simple but for the fact that at the time of making of these records brother-in-law was used interchangeably with half-brother and step-brother, and nephew was used interchangeably with cousin.”

38.  Aaron Atkins.  Will, 1684.  Quoted by Salley.  171.  He says “my brother in Law Mr Thomas Smith” and further identified him as the father of Atkins’ “two nephews Thomas and George.”  After disposing of his goods, he names “Tho: Smith my Deare brother” as his executrix.”

39.  She was a grand-niece of James Fenimore Cooper. [49]

40.  Woolson.  15.  John Locke was the secretary to Cooper, and responsible for writing much of the colony’s governing constitution. [50]

45.  “Thomas Smith (Governor of South Carolina).”  Wikipedia website.  This proposes that the son of Nicholas Smith of Exeter married Joan Atkins, mother of Thomas Smith’s wife.

46.  Otto.  21.

47.  J. E. Buchanan.  “The Colleton Family and the Early History of South Carolina and Barbados 1646-1775.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Edinburgh, 1989.  81–83.

48.  “Constance Fenimore Woolson.”  Wikipedia website.
49.  Wikipedia, Woolson.
50.  Roper.